Marianne Kaufmann-Abderhalden fastest in second Downhill training

30 November 2011 21:14

LAKE LOUISE, Canada - It’s the second day Downhill training for the ladies in Lake Louise, and there are some different names at the top of the leader board. Marianne Kaufmann - Abderhalden, was the fastest lady down the course on Wednesday. With a time of 1 minute, 54.37 seconds, the Swiss newlywed was 0.38 seconds faster than Italian Daniela Merighetti and .42 seconds ahead of yesterday’s leader Lindsey Vonn.

On a beautiful and rather warm day, it was only Julia Mancuso and Andrea Fischbacher who decided to skip today’s run.

It would have been the usual day on the hill, with the usual finish area talk among the ladies ranging from the improving course conditions, testing of material, and technical adjustments that might be needed to ski faster, to who made a mistake where, coming down… But today there was a new hot topic, and most ladies seemed very excited about it. Due to the unusually warm weather in Europe, the Val d’ Isere SG race had to be rescheduled to Beaver Creek, CO.

“I always hoped I could race in Beaver Creek and now my dream is finally coming true, “ Vonn said about the change in schedule.

Elisabeth Goergl got the news about the new location of the SG minutes after she crossed the finish line, and she couldn’t hide the excitement.

“I’m really excited to ski on the Birds of Prey, it’s going to be a cool challenge! I was really surprised, I just heard it, and it’s so cool!”

Anja Paerson seemed she might have some mixed feelings about heading to Beaver Creek, mostly because of the logistic challenge such a change of schedule will bring to her team.

“It’s a bit crazy but we knew already last week that it might be that way, so we did a lot of different schedules for us coming in. I think it’s going to be the most expensive race I’ve ever done,” she said with a laugh.

“With the team we have to switch all the tickets and the cargo. It’s a lot of different thing that the coaches are going to have a hard time, but for us athletes, I don’t think we mind at all.”

Ignoring the logistics of moving back to Colorado, Anja seemed eager to get the chance to try out the famous Beaver Creek slope.

“It’s going to be awesome to ski, maybe a bit rough for just one race, but we will see. We might end up here until Christmas, because we don’t have any snow in Europe.”

Lara Gut was almost in the starting gate of today’s training run when she got the news that she will be skiing the Birds of Prey.

“I heard that at the start, just before starting so sure, I’m excited to go over there. We will race on a men’s course, it’s going to be a little bit difficult for me. But for the rest I think it’s going to be harder for the team, for the coaches to move there for the race. But, we are doing World Cup so we have to travel around the world.”

Same as Paerson, Lara believes staying on this side of the Ocean might be the only chance to have some races.

“There is really no snow over there, if we go back, we will have holidays until January. Anyway, I think it’s better to race, to let people know we are still skiing and the World Cup is still going on.